December 06, 2015

The season of Advent
is shaped around the twin themes of judgment and promise
and so the book of Isaiah is a perfect reading companion.
It is, as it has been called, the ‘fifth gospel’ – it prepares the way,
it sounds in advance the gospel message of Jesus.
Isaiah is a book with three parts.
The first part contains chapters 1-39 and is the work of the prophet Isaiah in the eight century BC.
The second part contains chapters 40-55 and is the work of a prophet in the sixth century BC, in the midst of exile.
The third part contains chapters 56-66 and is the work of a prophet in the fifth century BC after the return from exile.
While these three parts reflect three different points in Israel’s history,
the book hangs together so that we can read it as a whole.[i]

First Isaiah (ch.1-39) is largely an exercise in prophetic judgement.
We think of prophecy as predicting the future,
but the prophets of the Old Testament work more in the vein of criticism.
like newspapers have commentators,
who offer their weekly view on the issues of the day,
so Israel’s prophets uttered their judgements
on the nation’s politics, economics, and worship.
They speak not in their name,
but in the name of the God who calls them and appoints them.
Isaiah announces that judgement is coming
because of the lack of trust that king and people have in God
and because of their disobedience,
their failure to live according to the ways of God.
First Isaiah confronts
the false faith, the unjust policies, the fake worship
that he finds amongst king and people.
If you continue, he says, judgement will come,
this will be the consequence of your sin.
First Isaiah reminds us that the task of the preacher and the church is to challenge the status quo,
both within the church itself and the wider society in which it is situated.
To name the ideology that fails to acknowledge the sovereignty of God,
that works against justice
that is stuck in complacency
that believes God is on their side irrespective of their actions.
First Isaiah comes to us as an Advent voice to wake us to the reality of judgment.
It is coming, it is on it’s way.
The church becomes so comfortable and complacent that we don’t know what to do with judgment,
We don’t know how to receive the long passages of judgment that are found amongst Israel’s prophets.
We have made God so friendly that we consider him harmless
so that like Jerusalem in Isaiah’s day we think there is nothing to fear.
We have made the grace of God cheap.

If First Isaiah sounds the warning of judgement,
Second Isaiah (ch 40-55) announces hope.
Not hope as some kind of empty optimism that things will get better,
but hope that emerges out and within the experience of grief.
Second Isaiah writes to a people that have been brought to their knees.
Some suggest that between the end of chapter 39 and the beginning of chapter 40,
we should read the book of Lamentations,
if we are to understand what has happened to the people of Israel.
In Lamentations we read Israel’s account of its pain and loss and humiliation at the destruction of its home and its exile into Babylon.
The first words of Isaiah chapter 40
announce a song of comfort, of good news, of salvation, of hope.
The judgement of First Isaiah results in punishment,
but through the words of Second Isaiah this punishment is now seen as Israel’s suffering vocation.
It is Second Isaiah that contains the songs of the Suffering Servant (Is 42, 49, 50, 53)

Second Isaiah allows Israel to see that exile is not the last word,
God does not judge and punish as an end in itself,
but for the purposes of a new exodus,
a new salvation,
a new understanding that God is not always for Israel,
but God is always with Israel.
Second Isaiah also allows Israel to hear its story a fresh,
free of the false versions that First Isaiah denounced.
Israel can once again see that God is
The God of Abraham, Sarah, Noah and David (Is 41, 51, 54, 55)
and because of this he is their God.
God has not abandoned them.
God remains with them.
God is Immanuel.
Second Isaiah comes to us as Advent voice announcing hope to a people without hope,
to a people who have ceased to believe another world is possible,
who have ceased to believe that God is at work,
who doubt whether the powers of evil can ever be defeated,
He offers hope, and comfort,
and with that he dismisses all others gods or powers as no gods and no powers in the face of the awesome Creator God of Israel,
who declares you chosen, beloved and precious (Is 43-44).

While First Isaiah warns of judgement,
and Second Isaiah proclaims good news and hope,
Third Isaiah envisions a new world,
an alternative world.
What does this alternative world look like?
It looks like a world where the foreigner and the outcast are welcomed and embraced,
where God’s temple will be a house of prayer for all nations (Is 56).
It looks like a world in which fasting is turned into the act of feeding the hungry and giving the homeless a home (Is 58).
It look like a world that proclaims good news to the poor,
healing for the broken-hearted,
freedom for the captives.
A world of jubilee, where forgiveness and redemption are enacted (Is 61)
The new alternative world that Third Isaiah imagines
is ‘an assault on all controlled thinking that insists that the world is presently organized in the only way that it could be.’[ii]
Third Isaiah culminates in the astonishing vision
of God’s promise to create a new heavens and a new earth,
a new Jerusalem
in which
never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child … (Is 65)
Third Isaiah comes to us an Advent voice of imagination:
Imagine another world says Isaiah,
imagine another way of relating,
imagine another way of living.
Where the church and wider society lacks imagination,
lacks the space, the time, the desire to imagine differently,
Isaiah says let God open your eyes to his newness,
to his kingdom.
Don’t settle for what is,
imagine what will be.
Don’t settle for a world of war,
a world of greed and profit
a world of fences and walls
a world of austerity
a world of scarcity
a world of self-interest
See what God is promising
A world of peace and justice,
a world of reconciled relationships,
a world of generosity and freedom,
a world of feasting and abundance.
Advent is a time for dreaming and imagination.

First Isaiah says speak the truth
Second Isaiah says do not be afraid, have hope
Third Isaiah says learn to dream again[iii]
For God’s promised end has come and is coming
Jesus has come and is coming
God’s judgement on evil and promise of new creation.

[i] This sermon has been helped by Walter Brueggemann, ‘Unity and Dynamic in the Isaiah Tradition’ in Old Testament Theology: Essays on Structure, Theme and Text. Ed. by Patrick Miller (Fortress, 1992), pp.252-269.

[iii] I’m borrowing these words from the titles of Sam Well’s three collections of sermons: Speaking the Truth (Abingdon, 2008), Be Not Afraid (Brazos, 2011) and Learning to Dream Again (Canterbury, 2013).

It's brilliant. In resembles The Nail as it offers a series of monologues from different characters in the story. However rather than telling the story from beginning to end, he tells it from the end to the beginning, beginning with Anna in the temple (Luke 2), and the journeying backwards through Rachel (a mother who has lost a child to Herod's massacre), Herod, Casper, David (a shepherd), Martha (innkeeper), Joseph, Elizabeth, Mary and back further to Isaiah and finally Moses. Cottrell's inspiration comes from a painting by Albert Herbert, pictured on the front cover called Nativity With the Burning Bush.

Cottrell's imaginative imagining of each character's feelings and choices pushes the traditional story in new directions. Particularly powerful are the chapters on Anna, Rachel, Martha, Elizabeth and Mary - the grief and pain, the conviction and faith.

I used edited selections for our Carols by Candlelight service. It's probably too late to read this book now in Advent, but would make a great read for the 12 days of Christmas, or to wait until next year.